Hero
by Tsarina Torment
Summary: They say you should never meet your heroes. Failure to comply may result in getting tongue-tied, or a failure of the brain to mouth filter. Post-episode tag for 3.24 "Firebreak"


**Disclaimer: I don't own _Thunderbirds._**

_Spoilers for 3.24 "Firebreak"_

Rescue Scout Leader Neil had his heart in his mouth from the moment he heard that Bee and Henry had ended up trapped in the huge forest fire threatening their village right up until the moment Thunderbirds One and Two landed by the firefighters clearing away their equipment and the two children were lowered from the green giant's access hatch.

_A Rescue Scout is calm_ was fantastic when you were the one in trouble, but it did little to help agitated guardians when the danger was nowhere near you, but threatening to kill two of your charges. Bee, he had no doubt, had kept her head admirably. Mature for her age and quick thinking, Neil had her pegged for a future Falcon one day. Henry, on the other hand, was eager and enthusiastic, but discouraged easily and had yet to progress past Buzzard. Neil hoped he would progress as he got older – what leader didn't hope for their troop members to reach the highest levels – but for now his youth worked against him. The boy would have panicked.

Except, neither child looked remotely shaken by their near-death experience. Bee was smiling warmly as she thanked the men in blue, shaking the hands of the three that had disembarked with her, while Henry seemed to be almost bouncing on his feet. The yellow-sashed man ruffled his hair, clearly amused, and he _beamed_. Neil had heard stories – who _hadn't,_ and the Rescue Scouts as a whole held International Rescue in the highest regard, considering all the members honorary Falcons of the highest calibre – but to see the reassuring nature of the men in person was something else entirely.

A fourth man appeared, dropping down from Thunderbird One, and Neil watched in amazement as he barely crossed half the distance between the two craft before Henry was jumping at him, clutching him around the shoulders tightly and babbling something Neil couldn't hear from where he was. The grey-sashed man laughed, catching him and continuing to walk heedless of the additional weight before putting him down beside Bee, who instead of reaching out for a grateful handshake as she had with the others, extended both her arms in a demand for a hug of her own. It was given, before Fire Chief Carter interrupted them to talk.

They say you should never meet your heroes. Neil's stomach fluttered as though filled with butterflies as the grey-sashed man broke away from the conversation and began to head towards him, one hand resting easily on Henry's shoulder and keeping pace easily with Bee's hoverchair. The commander of International Rescue – who else could the man be, piloting the flagship of the fleet as he did – definitely ranked right up there amongst the greatest of his heroes, and he was _walking right towards him_.

"It's Neil, right?" the man said, stopping directly in front of him, Henry still plastered to his side and gazing up at him in total adoration. Neil could relate as his voice promptly vanished and all he could manage was an awkward nod. "The name's Scott, it's good to meet you." A hand – the one not on Henry's shoulder – extended towards him and he blinked at it for a moment before common sense returned and he clasped it in one of his own. The fingers, bare past the cut off of the gloves, were warm.

"Likewise," he managed awkwardly. "Thank you for saving them." Scott chuckled, and he was struck by the realisation that they couldn't be that far apart in age. He'd always thought the members of International Rescue were older.

"They hardly needed me," he said as he pulled his hand back and rested it on Bee's shoulder. "You've got a good pair of kids here. The Rescue Scouts are lucky to have them." It sounded like the sort of line regurgitated all the time to worried guardians to reassure and distract them from the severity of what had just happened, except Scott managed to sound like he truly believed it as he smiled down at both children.

"Scott taught us the triple fisherman knot!" Henry burst out suddenly, apropos of nothing, fishing around in his pockets to withdraw a piece of thick string. "Look!" Caught off guard, and a little disbelieving that in the space of a few short hours, including being at the centre of an inferno, Henry had managed to learn one of the more complicated knots in the handbook, Neil watched the familiar over-under. "Ta-dah!"

One perfect triple fisherman knot sat in the palm of his hands, and Neil couldn't help but stare at Scott, his opinion of the man skyrocketing even higher, if that possible. The man chuckled a little awkwardly.

"Scott was a Rescue Scout, too," Bee interjected before Neil could think of a verbal response. "He was a Falcon."

"You were?" Neil blurted before his brain caught up with his mouth. "I mean, er, well, the organisation considers you honorary Falcons, but I never thought that you might actually have been one of us," he gabbled.

"Honorary Falcons?" Scott sounded amused and Neil just wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole. "The others'll like that. They never made it that far. Alan's still a Kite, and Gordon never made it past Squid."

_Squid?_

"Hey, squid are way cooler than your birds of prey!" a yell came from the trio still with the firefighters. Neil managed to glance around Scott – a difficult feat, the man was tall and had a commanding presence – to identify the most likely culprit as the yellow-sashed one. Yellow. Thunderbird Four. The aquanaut.

"Ignore him," Scott said, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. "I'll leave these two in your hands then, Neil," he continued, gently nudging Henry forwards and breaking into a fond smile as the boy gripped onto his arm. "I've got to go now, Henry." Neil watched as he crouched down to the boy's height and gently extracted his arm before ruffling Henry's hair lightly. "You did really good today; keep it up and you'll make Falcon." Henry nodded jerkily, breaking into a big smile, and Scott stood up unimpeded. "You, too, Bee," he said, before turning to Neil, whose mouth immediately went dry again.

"Thank you," he managed, swallowing awkwardly. "For saving them."

"It's what we do," Scott shrugged. "I'm glad we could." He turned and began to walk away.

"Wait!" Neil's mouth lurched ahead of his brain again, talking without permission. "Why don't you visit the troop some time? The kids would love to meet you!"

Scott had stopped at his initial shout and was looking back at him over his shoulder. For the first time in the encounter, he'd stopped smiling and instead wore something more akin to a frown. He looked tired.

"We-"

"-would love to!" a new voice broke in, and Neil blinked at the tank of a man who had snuck up on them without his notice. A green baldric proclaimed him as the pilot of Thunderbird Two.

"It'd be _awesome_," the final member said, coming up on Scott's other side. "I haven't been to a meeting since I became a member of International Rescue. Oh man, did you say I could be a Falcon?"

"_Honorary_ Falcon, bird-brain," the aquanaut corrected. "But aren't you still a Kite? How many levels below Falcon is that?"

"Not my fault I have to do all my badges remotely," the red-sashed man pouted, although Neil was quickly realising that he was still a teenager – and still a Rescue Scout! He wondered if the boy's troop realised they had an actual member of International Rescue amongst them. Almost certainly not – that was news that wouldn't be kept quiet across the network for long.

"Guys-" Scott started. "You know we can't-"

"What Scott is trying to say," the largest man said, cutting him off – Neil was starting to wonder if his initial assumption that Scott was the commander was accurate – "is that we have some other commitments at the moment, but once those are settled we'd love to try and work something out."

"Really?" Henry and Bee both asked, the boy bouncing on the soles of his feet while Bee clutched at her badge sash.

Scott's shoulders slumped and he took a deep breath before fully turning to face them again. While not as big as earlier, his smile had returned.

"No promises," he warned. "We're very busy. But I don't see why we can't try."

"Yes!" the children exclaimed, punching the air in delight. Neil watched Scott's smile grow a little more at the sight.

"Well, we need to be off now," the man said, and offered his hand to Neil again. Awestruck all over again, Neil accepted it. "See you again sometime."

With friendly waves, the four of them turned away again and headed back towards Fire Chief Carter, and their Thunderbirds.

"Aren't they amazing?" Henry asked as they watched the two craft take off a minute later. "He said his Dad taught him the triple fisherman knot. Do you think he could bring him along, too?"

"That's up to him and his Dad," Neil said, reaching out and putting his own hands on their shoulders to steer them away as the Thunderbirds vanished into the distance. "Let's get back to base. Everyone's been worried about you two."

"We were fine," Bee said, before a somewhat sly grin formed on her face. "Your face is red, though. You looked like a tomato the entire time Scott was here."

Neil spluttered.

"I did not!"

**I figure the Rescue Scouts must think _really_ highly of International Rescue - after all, the clue's in the name, for starters. And if Scott was a Rescue Scout, chances are the rest of the boys were as well, and if Alan's as young as I think he is, he's probably still a member even if he's a little too busy doing real rescues to earn badges nowadays.**

**Judging by the ranks "Buzzard", "Condor", and "Falcon", it seems like they use birds of prey as their naming system which is pretty neat. I tried to follow that with "Kite". _Squid_ is just an in-joke for the Tracys.**

**Thanks for reading!  
Tsari**


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